Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse the Libro del difenditore della pacie e tranquilità, the anonymous Italian vernacularization of Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor pacis: the translation is preserved in the sole manuscript Laurenziano Pluteo XLIV.26 and is dated to 1363. The Difenditore is strongly connected to the historical context in which it was born and can be considered as a cultural answer to the difficult political situation characterising Florence in the fourteenth century. Issues concerning the genesis of the translation, both from a linguistic and philosophical point of view, are discussed.